CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[Dated by H. C. R.: May, 1809.]

Dear Sir,--Would you be so kind as, when you go to the Times office, to see about an Advertis.e.m.e.nt which My Landlady's Daughter left for insertion about ten days since and has not appeared, for a Governesses Place? The references are to Thorpe & Graves 18 Lower Holborn, and to M.

B. 115 Oxford St. Though not anxious about att.i.tudes, she pines for a situation. I got home tolerably well, as I hear, the other evening. It may be a warning to any one in future to ask me to a dinner party. I always disgrace myself. I floated up stairs on the Coachman's back, like Ariel; "On a bat's back I do fly, After sunset merrily."

In sobriety

I am

Yours truly

C. LAMB.

[Lamb used the simile of Ariel at least twice afterwards: at the close of the _Elia_ essay "Rejoicings on the New Year's Coming-of-Age," and in a letter to J. V. Asbury of Enfield, the Lambs' doctor.]

LETTER 181

MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT

[June 2, 1809.]

You may write to Hazlitt, that I will _certainly_ go to Winterslough, as my Father has agreed to give me 5l. to bear my expences, and has given leave that I may stop till that is spent, leaving enough to defray my Carriage on the 14th July.

So far Martin has written, and further than that I can give you no intelligence, for I do not yet know Phillips's intentions; nor can I tell you the exact time when we can come; nor can I positively say we shall come at all; for we have scruples of conscience about there being so many of us. Martin says, if you can borrow a blanket or two, he can sleep on the floor, without either bed or mattress, which would save his expences at the Hut; for, if Phillips breakfasts there, he must do so too, which would swallow up all his money. And he and I have calculated that, if he has no Inn expences, he may as well spare that money to give you for a part of his roast beef.

We can spare you also just five pounds. You are not to say this to Hazlitt, lest his delicacy should be alarmed; but I tell you what Martin and I have planned, that, if you happen to be empty pursed at this time, you may think it as well to make him up a bed in the best kitchen.

I think it very probable that Phillips will come; and, if you do not like such a croud of us, for they both talk of staying a whole month, tell me so, and we will put off our visit till next summer.

The 14th July is the day Martin has fixed for _coming_. I should have written before, if I could have got a positive answer from them.

Thank you very much for the good work you have done for me. Mrs.

Stoddart also thanks you for the gloves. How often must I tell you never to do any needle work for any body but me?

Martin Burney has been very ill, and still is very weak and pale. Mrs.

Holcroft and all her children, and all her scholars, have had the measles. Your old friend, Mrs. Fenwick, is in town.

We are going to see Mrs. Martin and her daughter, Mrs. Fulton (Sarah Martin), and I expect to see there the future husband of Louisa. It will be a charming evening, doubtless.

I cannot write any more, for we have got a n.o.ble Life of Lord Nelson lent us for a short time by my poor relation the book binder, and I want to read as much of it as I can.

Yours affectionately, M. LAMB.

On reading Martin's note over again, we guess the Captain means him to stay only a fortnight. It is most likely we shall come the beginning of July. Sat.u.r.day [?June 3].

[The Lambs were proposing to spend their holidays with the Hazlitts, in July, and to take Colonel Phillips and his nephew Martin Burney with them. (Or possibly it was the other Phillips.) As it happened, however, Mary Lamb was taken ill almost immediately after writing this letter, and the visit had to be postponed until September and October.

The Hut was the Winterslow inn.

"My poor relation the book binder." See the letter to Barron Field, Oct.

4, 1827.]

LETTER 182

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE June 7th, 1809.

Dear Coleridge,--I congratulate you on the appearance of "The Friend."

Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise. I had a kind letter from you some time since, which I have left unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I believe, for a review in the "Annual," am I not? The "Monthly Review"

sneers at me, and asks "if 'Comus' is not _good enough_ for Mr. Lamb?"

because I have said no good serious dramas have been written since the death of Charles the First, except "Samson Agonistes"; so because they do not know, or won't remember, that "Comus" was written long before, I am to be set down as an undervaluer of Milton! O Coleridge, do kill those reviews, or they will kill us--kill all we like! Be a friend to all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself; but I have got other at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two rooms on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to myself, and all new painted, &c., and all for 30 a year! I came into them on Sat.u.r.day week; and on Monday following, Mary was taken ill with fatigue of moving, and affected, I believe, by the novelty of the home; she could not sleep, and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to me, and she has a month or two's sad distraction to go through. What sad large pieces it cuts out of life--out of _her_ life, who is getting rather old; and we may not have many years to live together! I am weaker, and bear it worse than I ever did. But I hope we shall be comfortable by and bye. The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now it is dry. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is much pleasanter than Mitre Court; but, alas! the household G.o.ds are slow to come in a new mansion. They are in their infancy to me; I do not feel them yet; no hearth has blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places!

I was very glad to see Wordsworth's book advertised; I am to have it to-morrow lent me, and if Wordsworth don't send me an order for one upon Longman, I will buy it. It is greatly extolled and liked by all who have seen it. Let me hear from some of you, for I am desolate. I shall have to send you, in a week or two, two volumes of Juvenile Poetry, done by Mary and me within the last six months, and that tale in prose which Wordsworth so much liked, which was published at Christmas, with nine others, by us, and has reached a second edition. There's for you! We have almost worked ourselves out of child's work, and I don't know what to do. Sometimes I think of a drama, but I have no head for play-making; I can do the dialogue, and that's all. I am quite aground for a plan, and I must do something for money. Not that I have immediate wants, but I have prospective ones. O money, money, how blindly thou hast been worshipped, and how stupidly abused! Thou art health, and liberty, and strength; and he that has thee may rattle his pockets at the foul fiend!

Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not quite enough for my occasions for a year or two to come. While I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books which you had at the "Courier" Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, containing "The White Devil,"

"Green's Tu Quoque," and the "Honest Wh.o.r.e,"--perhaps the most valuable volume of them all--_that_ I could not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word; for, to use the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had three), the "Arcadia," and "Daniel,"

enriched with ma.n.u.script notes. I wish every book I have were so noted.

They have thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to say I relish him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. You well call him sober-minded. Your notes are excellent. Perhaps you've forgot them. I have read a review in the "Quarterly," by Southey, on the Missionaries, which is most masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite beautiful. Do remember my Dodsley; and pray do write; or let some of you write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking. Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many. Have you read "Coelebs?" It has reached eight editions in so many weeks; yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this "Coelebs in Search of a Wife" of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the beginning:--

"If ever I marry a wife I'd marry a landlord's daughter, For then I may sit in the bar, And drink cold brandy-and-water."

I don't expect you can find time from your "Friend" to write to me much, but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. G.o.dwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write; but I could not let "The Friend" pa.s.s without a congratulatory epistle. I won't criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall send my packet to you?--by what conveyance?--by Longman, Short-man, or how? Give my kindest remembrances to Wordsworth. Tell him he must give me a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish you could all come and see me in my new rooms. G.o.d bless you all.

C. L.

[The first number of _The Friend_ was dated June 1, 1809.

Lamb's _Dramatic Specimens_ had been reviewed in the _Annual Review_ for 1808, with discrimination and approval (see Vol. IV. of my large edition), but whether or not by Coleridge I do not know.

Wordsworth's book was his pamphlet on the "Convention of Cintra."

The Juvenile Poetry was _Poetry for Children. Entirely Original_. By the author of _Mrs. Leicester's School_. In two volumes, 1809. _Mrs.

Leicester's School_, 1809, had been published a little before.

Wordsworth's favourite tale was Arabella Hardy's "The Sea Voyage."

I know nothing of the annotated copy of Sidney's _Arcadia_. Daniel's _Poetical Works_, 12mo, 1718, two volumes, with marginalia by Lamb and Coleridge, is still preserved. The copy of Hannah More's _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, 1809, with Lamb's verses, is not, I think, now known.

Southey's missionary article was in the first number of the _Quarterly_, February, 1809.

Hervey wrote _Meditations among the Tombs_; Sir Thomas Browne, _Urn Burial_.